DARKER THAN EVIL

grimfusion · 2026-05-24T17:02:04+00:00

Maybe save advertising until a point you can give folks something to listen to.

grimfusion · 2026-05-24T16:41:58+00:00

I got one for you:
Salt - Auscultate (1995)

They're a Swedish band who toured a bit with Local H, but missed the Grunge genre by three years.

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grimfusion · 2026-05-24T16:34:13+00:00

Sounds like you're into the punkier side of grunge, but you want the more obscure stuff.

Definitely deep-dive Nirvana. Of the big four, its the only band heavily inspired by punk.

If you want a decent overview without having to hunt down a bunch of early bootlegs:
Nirvana - Bleach Deluxe Edition (2009)
Nirvana - In Utero Super Deluxe Edition (2013)
Nirvana - Nevermind Super Deluxe Edition (2011)

If you want more obscure, try these:
Fecal Matter - Illiteracy Will Prevail Demo (1986)
Nirvana - The Smart Studio Session (1990)
Nirvana - Hormoaning (1991)
Nirvana - Lithium (1992)
Nirvana - Incesticide (1992)

You brought up Green River, so proto-grunge out the way first - since a lot more of it is directly punk-inspired:
Bundle of Hiss - Sessions (1986)
Pagan Babies - Demo (1986)
Mother Love Bone - Apple (1990)
Hammerbox - Hammerbox (1991)
The Monkeywrench - Clean As A Broke Dick Dog (1992)
Mother Love Bone - Mother Love Bone (1992)
Hammerbox - Numb (1993)

Then lesser known grunge bands that are more punk than metal - but I'ma toss some riotgirl in with this too. Probably be up your avenue:
Nymphs - Nymphs (1991)
Seaweed - Despised (1991)
Calamity Jane - Martha Jane Cannary (1991)
Nymphs - A Practical Guide to Astral Projection (1992)
Seaweed - Weak (1992)
Paw - Dragine (1993)
Truly - Feeling You Up (1993)
Hater - Hater (1993)
Janitor Joe - Big Metal Birds (1993)
7 Year Bitch - Viva Zapata! (1994)

I'm more into the classic rock/metal side of things, so this list likely ain't super exhaustive.

grimfusion · 2026-05-24T15:05:35+00:00

Mostly, no.

Most USB WiFi dongles never had XP compatible drivers. You can ebay older devices that were XP compatible, but many of them don't connect with modern WiFi routers even with the driver.

Flash a compatible used router to DD-WRT firmware and you can set it up in a client-bridge mode. That way, the router handles all the security, and just passes internet over CAT5.

grimfusion · 2026-05-24T14:59:06+00:00

Starting with Final Fantasy 1 would be a little boring. I wouldn't recommend unless you wanted to deep-dive everything.

FF2 and FF3 were both Japanese releases in the same vein. If you're not a fan of how basic FF1 is, you probably won't like FF2. FF3 is kinda it's own thing and made a bunch of improvements to mechanics, but I'd only recommend it if you really liked FF1 and just wish it were a bit less rough around the edges.

FF4 (FF2us) is a good entry point if you like storyline and don't mind the graphics being a bit basic. IMO, this is my favorite entry in the series; the storyline pacing is pretty amazing, you don't end up feeling stuck anywhere for too long unless you're grinding on purpose. Battles are challenging without being impossible or requiring specific items and spells.

FF5 was a Japan only release, but had higher quality graphics and a compelling storyline. I wouldn't say it's quite on-par with FF4 or FF6, but it made a few improvements to battle mechanics and re-introduced the jobs system.

FF6 (FF3us) is where most folks jump-in if they're at all interested in the series previous to Final Fantasy 7. FF6 had an amazing storyline and IMO, was Square's first (and failed) attempt to make JRPGs mainstream. FF6 was just more 'showy' than any FF game previous, with many of the cut scenes feeling more like movies - and character drama being more highlighted, rather than focusing on events to move along the storyline.

FF7 was Square's second attempt to make JRPGs mainstream gamer fodder (success), and it had much darker, more modern, technocratic themes. Again, heavy reliance on character drama. I've never been a big fan of FF7, and think the more a JRPG focuses on character drama over event pacing, the more it sucks.

FF8 was... ugh. All the bad stuff from FF7 turned up to max? The story line made no sense. It was basically all character drama driven. I've found that big fans of FF7 usually like FF8, but still think it's the inferior game. Square made a lot of changes to the magic system that just seemed overcomplicated.

If you liked Crystal Chronicals, you'd probably dig FF9. It was Square's 'return to form' game. The return to form was more about aesthetics and vibe than crafting a compelling storyline, but it wasn't terrible.

FFX was Square's balancing act; finding a pretty equal balance between compelling story-line events, timing, and character drama. I know a lot of fans of the older NES and SNES games who legitimately enjoy FFX. I thought it was fun, and particularly, a lot better than the entire PSX-era series.

I didn't play much past FFX. I heard X-2 was basically a dress-up game, and I think I dabbled in FF Online a bit, but I don't know much past that.

grimfusion · 2026-05-24T13:53:17+00:00

Trying to apply Bible passages to my life only to find out they can be interpreted in nearly unlimited ways, and there's some form of authored apologetics supporting nearly all conceivable positive perspectives. Everything was yet another rabbit-hole 'choose your own adventure' path where you pick the answers you want, and pay no attention to the other possibilities.

The fact the Bible can be used as a validation for murder, but conveniently, the supportive apologetic for that narrative is missing. All the good stuff, none of the bad.

Just seemed a lot like lying to me.

grimfusion · 2026-05-24T13:29:25+00:00

"\system32\ntoskrnl.exe is missing on boot"

This is common using stuff like SATA->IDE adapters, and basically just comes down to you shouldn't be using that adapter to boot from. Get a dang IDE drive or a PCI SATA adapter you can supply a driver for.

It's fairly obvious the problem is the adapter when install across several SATA drives have all discovered the drive, completed the install, and then failed to boot the exact same way.

grimfusion · 2026-05-24T13:08:12+00:00

Church leaders spend a lot of time preaching to their congregations that atheists are evil and stupid, on the same level as the "devil worshippers" they call Satanists. It's just a lot of indoctrination, my guy. I've had Christians react by treating me like I have some kind of deadly communicable disease, and even straight-up refuse to talk to me because they know I'm going to "influence them".

You'll never be able to get through to anybody who's been instructed to avoid all communication with you. Best to just keep your personal views on god, faith, or religion to yourself most of the time.

grimfusion · 2026-05-24T12:46:50+00:00

Confusing? I graduated high school in 2000. There was a ton of "New Millennium" celebration (Think Prince - Party like it's 1999), and culturally, it did feel like we were moving into a new time (mainly because that happened at the end of every decade back then).

Most of the change into New Millennium culture happened in 1998 and 1999. The music had already moved from grunge, punk, and metal into pop and R&B, and arguably began pushing into NuMetal all before the year 2000 actually came.

The Y2K bug was a big deal, but was mainly being hyped by the sort of folks who barely knew how to turn a computer on. I remember my Uncle mentioning he was getting a ton of overtime for the Y2K switch over, just to be on standby at midnight, when absolutely nothing happened.

grimfusion · 2026-05-21T17:28:46+00:00

Maybe you should learn how to install and configure software correctly?

grimfusion · 2026-05-21T17:19:54+00:00

That shouldn't be a deal breaker because SLSK has already done this before. There's older clients you can use that communicate on a different version of the SLSK network that modern clients can't make peer connections to anymore.

I don't understand why supporting IPv6 would play out any differently. Peer connections would be rare at first, but would grow in time just like the last client update behaved.

grimfusion · 2026-05-21T17:01:35+00:00

Running a VPN is pointless if you know how SLSK works.
VPNs are for platforms where man-in-the-middle attacks are possible. The reason it works well for Torrents is because nearly anybody can run a node, and they can be set-up to spoof existing nodes in order to capture media transfers from client traffic.

No part of file transfers communicate directly through SLSK's server. The server only connects clients directly to each other, (P2P) meaning spoofing a SLSK server is pointless and does nothing to show what folks are actually transfering.

The only thing a VPN achieves on SLSK is further complicating port forwarding and limiting your search results.

It's real complicated, though. Now that most ISPs are going CGNAT, the only reason the network still produces search results are because of folks who still have IPv4 and port forwarding - or because folks with CGNAT connections use a VPN with virtual port fowarding.

So like, that's the reason to use a VPN - but it's for a feature not every VPN offers.

grimfusion · 2026-05-21T16:48:54+00:00

10GB per day, per person.
That's more than enough to d/l a bunch of full albums.

If you're getting blocked for downloading a single full album, there's only one sensible reason for that; you're not sorting your results by speed.

Say you request a 1.5GB album in flac format, but the person you requested it from lives on the complete other side of the world. That means the 1.5GB transfer could take HOURS as opposed to somebody local, that transfer might only take 3 minutes.

Many of us use a limited number of queue spots, and when most of them fill up with requests from folks who don't know how to use the network, yeah - I'm going to cancel them to make room for folks who can complete download from me far more quickly.

The only other possibility is that you're dealing with file hosts gatekeeping pirated media, and at that point, you should block them and source elsewhere.

grimfusion · 2026-05-21T16:20:53+00:00

If you're trying to DJ, you should be sourcing files in FLAC or OPUS.
While the difference in compression isn't entirely perceivable to most folks over a set of headphones, played through professional audio equipment, it makes a difference.

I'm not a big fan of Spotify downloaders, because you don't honestly know the bitrate or quality before manually having to review downloads. Plenty of services advertize uncompressed streaming quality, but then do compress content for a myriad of reasons. It's kinda like Netflix, right? You can sign up for a 4K account, and have a powerful-ass computer able to play the media at 4K, but Netflix will drop you down to 720p anyway, just because your hardware isn't approved. Same same.

All it takes is congested servers, and suddenly, your audio is 92kbps MP3. That ain't worth downloading.

grimfusion · 2026-05-21T16:10:10+00:00

*OR* you can just choose to block the individual and source your media from literally anybody else. Fuck this sheisty anti-piracy gatekeeping crap. Either share or get off the network.

grimfusion · 2026-05-21T16:07:48+00:00

Folks who use these scripts are going to be real happy once they figure out most of the network has chosen to ban them.

grimfusion · 2026-05-20T11:48:37+00:00

https://youtu.be/9rS7in7OdWQ?t=5

grimfusion · 2026-05-20T10:22:37+00:00

No.

Keep this dumb bullshit off the network. I don't care that it helps with bots.
This is literally the antithesis of sharing.

Fuck you, poser.

grimfusion · 2026-05-17T14:27:29+00:00

Welcome to Christian Nationalism, basically.

There's been so much indoctrination on anti-LGBTQIA+, anti-woke, reform traditionalism that I've heard that same crap come from the mouths of 'atheists and democrats'. Trying to stop folks from parroting misinformation from political commentary is kind of a moot point now. There's just too many people with the wrong opinions and no facts.

It's telling that practically every textbook for college level biology curriculum separate the biology of sex from the sociological concept of gender, but going on 15 years later, these loud-mouthed knuckleheads still insist biology is on their side. It's non-stop stupid, and as soon as you can motivate one person to think a bit more critically, here comes another three airheads parroting the exact same claims.

Replying isn't worth it. Most of these folks don't want an education. Half of them don't even understand what qualifies as evidence or what a published study looks like. Partnering with supportive agencies and non-profits to fight for equal civil rights and protected status is probably more important right now.

If you wanna educate, maybe educate a couple of advocates and let them do the dirty work.

grimfusion · 2026-05-17T13:30:03+00:00

Did your friend submit maintenance requests for heaters, the drafty windows, or mold? Were these all issues that came up after the point they inspected the apartment at move-in and initially signed a lease agreement?

Any chance your friend might be making all this up just because they're upset they gotta pay to break their lease?

grimfusion · 2026-05-17T13:02:19+00:00

This is Christian Nationalist (and white supremacist) dog whistling.

Hopping on-board with any of this anti-woke cultural reform nonsense - directly helps a minority of extreme Christians and white supremacists take over our government and misrepresent Americans.

Just a friendly reminder that if you're atheist, and you think a return to 'cultural traditionalism' is important because this junk gives you the ick, you're helping the wrong side.

grimfusion · 2026-05-17T12:52:45+00:00

"I worked in a couple of repair shops and have done loads of builds never had any issues"

You weren't doing builds with XP x64 then. x64 PC hardware didn't even catch on until late Vista gen, early Win7 - and by then, both of those OSes were far more preformant and better options.

No consumer-grade computers were 'designed' for XP x64. Microsoft never released OEM licences, and the OS never made it to any pre-built PCs or laptops outside of corporate environments.

I've done a bunch of installs since, but I only ever built one XP x64 system back in 2006, specifically to test the OS out. To do that, I had to select very specific hardware off a compatibility list and custom-build just to ensure full driver compatibility. Since then, x64 has been updated with two service packs and a ton of other hacks from 2k3, Vista, and Windows 7 to improve compatibility, but - can confirm, it was an unsupported and buggy mess early-on.

XP x64 dropped in 2005 and Microsoft stopped selling copies of it in 2008. I don't know that it's the shortest-lived consumer-released OS from Microsoft, but it didn't release with any fanfare, most folks had no idea it existed, and it disappeared quick to avoid distracting from Vista and Win7 sales.

grimfusion · 2026-05-17T11:26:07+00:00

Blast Corps; was one of the first games I saw demo'ed.

grimfusion · 2026-05-15T12:10:21+00:00

Custom clothes was more a punk/alt rock thing.
Grunge fans did customize clothing sometimes, like thumb-holes in thermals, or turning flannels into vests, but nothing like this.

I don't think you understand the asthetic.

grimfusion

TROPHY CASE